DaptoFunlandGuy

Dude, we get it. We've heard your turnstile suggestions among other things and we've all discussed our thoughts on whether it would work or not. Every ride you're pointing at is in a foreign jurisdiction with different cultures, laws and safety requirements for OH&S. Any one of these things will kill most of your suggestions, and what's left is written off by the fact that the ride is built, approaching 20 years old, and can't accommodate your suggestions (or requires a large labour cost to implement). If you're gonna keep re-agitating the same thing every couple weeks, it's gonna get real tiresome real quick. You've made your suggestion. If the parks see it and want to do it... great. If they don't, oh well.

I try to keep my eye out for those shining stars amongst all the garbage. Much as I complain about the parks, I feel many of my complaints are cultural and policy rather than any individual effort on behalf of the individual cast members involved. If i've had a particularly good interaction with a cast member who has done what I consider a top job, I try to stop off at guest relations on the way out to fill out a compliment for them. The number of times GR staff have looked tired after dealing with a day full of complaints they're always really enthusiastic to have someone coming in to offer a kudos. I do hope they treat compliments as seriously (or more so) than whinging karens who think their short kid unable to ride big coaster is the worst thing imaginable...

Load and Unload are two separate blocks. It is possible for a train to be at each station at the same time. Much of the pre-show section of the track are driven by kicker wheels, and judging by Spotty's comments above, could most likely have a train on it with another at the launch, because it seems possible for a train to arrive at launch before the 60 second cooldown. A train can be stopped within the pre-show section by simply stopping or reversing the tyre drives. The launch itself is another block section as it can stop a train from rolling back beyond the launch point - but between launch and brake zone there is no other brake, so launch cannot fire until unload is clear. That said, it is load that takes the longest. And you only end up with a train waiting at launch if you have a crack team on a record breaking day as mentioned above. So the unload is USUALLY not the hold up. BUT - the cooldown is still a real thing - even as mentioned by spotty. The only thing I mentioned was that it seemed to be taking longer to cooldown than it used to - which is normal for aging plant and equipment with duty cycles...

My completely layperson's understanding of it is that the launch won't fire until the system is ready - so if there's a cooldown period it won't go until it reaches the target, but the theming and effects wouldn't be interlinked with the launch and would just be triggered by proxy \ IR beam or similar, so when the train arrives, the effects fire as timed, but if the launch isn't ready, it doesn't fire until it is. As for operators, short of an E-stop, I imagine the launch would be fully automated once the train leaves the station and requires no further input from the operator to launch once the launch system is ready to do so.

by hand as opposed to what? flying robot drones?

You're a wealth of knowledge as always Spotty but I think here, it's a case of she's getting on in years. As I mentioned above, I've overheard talk that it's taking longer to cool down between cycles, so they're holding longer at the station for that reason. Those record launch numbers sound amazing - and it proves that fast operations are possible in Australian parks... so I wonder what has changed - is it just the risk averse nature post-TRRR? Or is there just a lack of motivation to hit those high capacities anymore?

If they did that from year 1, yes. The trouble is - we can see how bad it has gone since it opened in September 2017. The ride has stood for 5 years and looks this bad. If it takes them 6 years to do the entire thing, the stuff they did this year will be one year worse than what it all looks like now... And given what else we've seen - superman, lethal, green lantern, etc over the years.... they can't paint them all that regularly.... so not sure what the long game is...

This is genuinely a good suggestion. I'd support this going in provided they had robust connectivity and a fallback option if the eftpos unit goes down. This also removes operators from performing the role of ticket taker and lets them focus on the actual task of grouping and loading. Some modifications required to avoid abuse and fraud but overall I see this as a winner. Nobody is picking on you. When you make good suggestions we'll recognise that and back it 100%. Just because you've seen something work elsewhere, it doesn't mean it will work here. Disney had to re-do all their beautiful gardens in Shanghai after parents let their kids piss and shit in the gardens instead of using the toilet. The self-deprecating 'everyone hates everything I say' whinge is old. it's been done before. and the woe is me attitude won't get you any sympathy. On this occasion, you were on the money, IMO.

Was this guy selling cups of small spherical ice cream? Because it sounds like he was the dippin' dots guy. 12 months to paint Rivals if it were completely shut down to do the job? BULLSHIT. Unless they're completely stripping it, a new coat or two as part of maintenance shouldn't take too long, provided the weather is kind. I won't put a number on it, but 12 months it isn't. Definitely less than 6. I think he might have been pulling your leg matey. Local painters with these skills already exist. They paint buildings and bridges and all sorts of things. Roller Coaster Painters aren't a specialist industry (although its quite reasonable in a country with as many coasters as the USA that they might have a specialist company that only does coasters). There used to be a company that had website images from their work repainting Lethal Weapon back in the day, and to be honest I reckon Lethal would have been the harder one to work on - A skyreach EWP platform can reach 150ft, meaning most of the coaster can be reached by a suitably qualified painter without additional equipment. The drop is 200ft, so everything else is lower than that, and the drop can be accessed by qualified abseiling crews (my multistorey building was painted by crews like this), so there is very little that can't be reached with a single EWP and some ropes. (suitably qualified personnel obviously, and you'd be surprised how many of those exist locally). Anything you can't reach is gonna need a crane and a man-basket but they used that to build the damn thing so not difficult to get them in again.

Insightful. They did give some additional detail about sensors and whatnot in a facebook post when west went down for maintenance and improvements to increase the station throughput and the post was similarly lambasted

Neearmap's latest update is dated 7 Jun - so less than two weeks ago. There is a construction fence around the entire ride envelope, not just the lift. There is a vehicle access way set up in the fencing which exits to the bottom right side of the picture. Some of this fencing has been up for a while but can't confirm how long as the most recent update prior to June was November. TPSN is certainly unreliable garbage but even a broken clock is right twice a day, and given the advanced set up (ie - its not just a fence to keep people out, the vehicle access path isn't something you do if you don't need it), i'd say if it doesn't start this week, it isn't far off....

I'm not sure - but I overheard an operator while I was waiting one day mention they had to delay dispatches because it needed more time to cool down - maybe this maintenance period will fix that issue up though... hopefully?

He opens his browser and types 'google.com' into bing, and then googles "funny pictures old man"

I think the original point I was trying to make is that Superman would never hit those dispatch numbers. Ops that fast in an Australian park? laughable.

Yeah - less days open per year does require them to cycle it even faster to keep up. And testing cycles would amount to ~1% given 120ish cycles per day. But yeah, I did say night events and off-peak periods would all come out in the wash so maintenance periods and testing cycles also wash out. They get 431 only if they can hit a 2 minute 46 second dispatch time from open to close all year round. I think its a bit further than you'd think.

I mean, 45,000 cycles a year based on a 7 hour / 364 day trading operation means 123.6 cycles a day, on average. That's only 17.6 cycles an hour (or 353 riders per hour). They'd need to dispatch the ride every 203.8 seconds or 3 minutes and 23 seconds. They may have achieved that on opening but there is no way in heck they reach that these days. And yes, i'm ignoring the night events, but since they reduce hours in winter and everything can be a walk-on I think it all comes out in the wash. (If you were wondering about the dispatch times for the maximum 55,000 cycles - it would need to be 151 cycles a day, or 21.6 cycles an hour (or 431.7 riders per hour). They'd need to dispatch the ride every 166.7 seconds or 2 minutes and 46 seconds and that is absolutely hilarious, but makes me wonder how the big US parks with Intamin Accelerators manage when they trade for longer hours. I think its a good idea, but then again I thought the same thing about the Leviathan Blog, which hasn't been updated in over 15 months.

I mean, once they missed their originally planned opening date, at least they just changed to 'coming soon, keep an eye out for announcements!' instead of the duck season \ wabbit season strategy deployed at Sea World.

Didn't he say in the coaster video that it's the 'being strapped in and not being in control \ not being able to get out' - but you're right once past the initial drop, he overcomes the fear pretty quickly.

They have several aircraft such as Cessna 210s, Cessna 310s, Cessna 404s and Vulcanair 68, but they don't make a secret of it if you know what to look for - http://i.nextmedia.com.au/Galleries/20111208053101_Aircraft%20with%20HyperPod.jpg One of their Cessna 210s a few years ago had tail number VH-MIQ, for example - so you can find them, and then you can track them (more or less - but I can't confirm whether this aircraft is still in their fleet today) The next time you see an aircraft flying a grid pattern, get the tail number and then google the registered owner.

So… you don’t need turnstiles… just paint dots on the floor and they’ll work it out? It’s called different safety jurisdictions. Australia is safer. This is why. Because ride computer says no. Or, if parents are apparently incapable of watching their kids, they should supply their own damn wristband!

I'm looking at DW's facebook post with these images, and I don't see a gondola in this picture on FB. It also doesn't look uniform (same thickness) all the way from top to bottom of the image. Not sure why there'd be different but very similar versions of the concept art, but they're all subject to change anyway. The status quo does point to it facing the highway, but as has been noted several times, they do state 'visible all over' or something to that effect - which points to either a face with higher exposure or multiple fixtures.

Yeah look - I rushed that post this morning before a meeting and on reflection, I was overreacting to that. Apologies.

The silhouette of the tower was clearly visible - it was more than just the top, it's just thats all that was lit up. (Shock - imagine if more of it was lit!) Wasn't it you that asked the question on where we think it should go? Yes, yes it was. If you'd already made your mind up that it could only go in one place, and intended on rubbishing everyone else's opinion, why even ask the question? The other consideration here is if the lights are mounted inside the ride track there is the risk of damage or contamination by ride oils and greases (part of the reason the tower looks as dirty as it does now - i've literally had drops of oil rain down on me whilst riding) - but if you had the lights outside the ride track, they'd be both lower maintenance and easier to access without impacting the ride systems. Heck - why not have one facing each way - north, with a slightly western facing aspect to hit the southbound highway, and south, with a slightly western facing aspect to do the same? They've just said lights, visible from all around the coast - they haven't said only one such installation will go on on one side now, have they? You get to see Joker on the southbound approach well before you're beside the park. Likewise the TopGolf logo is visible on the northbound approach for a little bit before you're alongside it - they aren't directly faced parallel to the road. The difference though is that the Tower can be seen from A LOT further away. It's taller. There'd be no point facing Green Lantern south, or north, because it isn't tall enough to be visible outside the few hundred metres of highway frontage they've got, Dreamworld tower on the other hand, as already pointed out - can be seen from the damn broadwater. I'm not saying put up your sign to hit 38k local residents, i'm saying put it up so it can be seen further away.... by ACTUAL people, not just the Wilkies Scrub conservation area. We're sure grateful you're not in charge of things.

I think you're finally catching on - so by this point, you stop putting dates on it because the constant moving of the goalposts is damaging your reputation with the paying public and you're pissing more people off with every missed deadline so at some fucking point you just say 'coming soon' instead of constantly updating the signage. They're still running ads that say September 3 (couldn't withdraw the ad quick enough) and people are probably booking now (if not already) for their september holidays and they're seeing ads that have another date on them. Be honest with people. tell them your woes. admit your mistakes. Don't stick your fingers in your ears and pretend like nothing is happening because the PR train has already left the station and you can't be bothered to catch it.